Chapter 6
Iwoke up to the sensation of cold. Not the freezing kind that seeped into your bones and made you shiver, but the cool kiss of exposed skin. And it was everywhere—my arms, legs, toes, chest, and hips. There was no warmth from any fabric at all.
At first, I thought I was dead. That those crazy circus psychos killed me and buried my body in the cold ground. There was no heaven or hell. There was just me and the dirt that was my grave. My own purgatory, because I didn’t deserve an afterlife.
Then the smells hit me.
Various scents of cooked meat, spices, sauces, wine, and melted candle wax were all around me. It was overwhelming. The kinds of smells that smacked one in the face when they walked into the house for Thanksgiving dinner. I half expected my sister to claim the last piece of pie.
It made no sense. I wasn’t at home for dinner. I would never be home again. Was it all a dream? Or was I dreaming now?
The drug still lingered in my mind, dulling my senses. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the sensations I did pick up feel cruelly sharp. Maybe this was hell. The scents surrounding me were all things I recognized but wished I could forget.
Barbequed meat from my family’s annual Fourth of July cookout. The sugared fruit my sister and I ate every Christmas. Mom’s Thanksgiving roasted potatoes, and finally, the sweet scent of brandy. The same kind I had that night.
Once upon a time, those scents would make me feel safe and loved. Now they were all tainted with the smell of her small body floating in chlorinated water.
I didn’t want to be here. The memories of smiles and happy family times were making me nauseous.
Wake up, Mazie.
My stomach twisted as I slowly rolled my eyes open.
And when I did, I wished I hadn’t.
Not only was it not a dream, but I was apparently the centerpiece for an extravagant feast. Candles flickered around my body, which lay flat on a long dining table. Every inch of me was on display, covered only by various platters of food as though I were a serving tray.
My arms stretched out above my head, and I could feel a small bowl resting in my left palm with something sticky in the right.
Grape juice bled down my ribs. A roasted chicken—its skin crispy and greasy—sat on my stomach.
The candied fruit I used to love as a child was decorating my left breast, and steam curled from a bowl balanced between my thighs.
Despite having all that food on me, I was oddly comfortable. The table almost cradled me, and the deep, red tablecloth under my body was soft and warm, maybe silk or velvet? I couldn’t tell, and when I moved to look, I caused a bowl on my thighs to clatter. A voice stopped me.
“Welcome back, Poppet. I hope you brought your appetite.”
Felix.
I lifted my chin slowly to look at the head of the table where Felix was sitting.
Behind him, silent as ever, stood Flynn, and beside them sat Austin.
He was bound to the same chair he was when I passed out, and he looked even worse than before.
His face was pale, and some of the color had drained from his lips, but his eyes were still alive and furious.
“What’s happening?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I had to ask.
Felix smiled back at me. “Why, we’re having a feast, of course. We must feed before the new year begins.”
That sounded far too ominous to mean something as simple as eating. “I’m not hungry.”
“Ah, but you are, Poppet.” The way his blue eyes sparkled as they traced over my exposed body told me that he wasn’t hungry in the traditional sense. I was the main course he wanted to devour. “You’re just as ravenous as I am.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
Both Flynn and Felix terrified me, but I wasn’t going to play their game. If they wanted to kill me, then they should just kill me and get it over with. I’d made peace with my fate a long time ago.
I moved to get up, and Felix tsked, stopping me.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he leaned back in his chair and swirled a goblet of deep, red liquid that I prayed was wine. “Careful now. For every dish you spill onto the table, Austin will have to eat one of his own.”
He lifted a silver-domed lid off a tray, revealing something that caused bile to rise in my throat.
Laid out on a platter in front of Austin was a human leg, severed at mid-thigh.
The skin had been stripped in places, showing the roasted meat, glistening with oils and herbs.
Around it were various garnishes. Sprigs of rosemary, charred onions, and slices of orange baked into the skin.
The scent was unbearable, but not as unbearable as the toenail polish on the foot still attached. I recognized that chipped blush pink.
Gina.
This sick bastard was going to make Austin eat his own wife.
Felix leaned over the dish and inhaled deeply as if it were fine cuisine.
“Presentation is everything.” His eyes flickered from the cooked flesh to my face. “The line between feast and funeral is only in how you dress the body.”
I was going to throw up.
“Sick fuck.” Austin growled. “Don’t play their game, Mazie.”
A part of me was tempted to listen to Austin and get up, but another part told me to stay as still as I could. There was no doubt in my mind that they would make him eat his wife. I sat by once and did nothing. Now Gina was dead. I couldn’t do it again.
My gag reflex, however, didn’t seem to care.
The longer I stared at Gina’s severed limb, the more my body convulsed.
The candied fruit shook, the chicken slid a touch, and one of the grapes rolled down my chest. It took everything I had to calm my stomach and still my body before something fell onto the table.
Felix lifted his glass in a toast. “Well done, Poppet. But I wonder how long you can keep this up?”
For the first time since I’d seen him in the hall, Flynn smiled, and I instantly wished I could go back to that painted-on grin.
It was slow and diabolical, snaking up at the corners like a viper ready to strike.
It sent a chill up my spine. And when he tilted his head at me, I could feel him daring me to move.
Ignoring Flynn’s smirk, I focused my concentration on remaining still. I tried to relax my limbs, calmed my pulse, and took small, shallow breaths, afraid that if I dared to breathe too hard, the grape teetering on my hip would fall.
I could escape the horrific sight of my situation and the tormentors that put us here, but I couldn’t escape the smell. Rosemary wafted up my nostrils like sour decay, causing me to suck back a few sharp gasps.
The grape rolled over my belly button to my other hipbone and stopped.
Phew.
Once I got my nausea under control, everything else was easy. All I had to do was lie there with my eyes closed and regulate my breathing.
“Well, that’s a pity,” Felix sighed. “You’re too good at this game, Poppet.”
Fuck you. I hope you choke on your wine.
“I think we should up the stakes.”
My eyes popped open. What did he mean, up the stakes? “We don’t need to do that.”
“Flynn, you look rather ravenous…”
No, he didn’t. He didn’t look like anything but a creepy mime.
“Perhaps you should taste our main course.”
Or he could stay the fuck over there.
Flynn wiped away my wishful thinking when his tongue darted out to lick his lips.
I couldn’t look away as the Mime slipped out from behind Felix and soundlessly walked my way. His hand slid along the edge of the table while his eyes remained locked on mine. Like a predator, he slowly stalked closer while sizing up his prey.
I couldn’t help but admire the beauty of his movements.
Taut, firm muscles that made graceful glides across the floor.
For a minute, I forgot who he was until he stepped up and tipped his head to study the dishes arranged across my body.
Candlelight painted his white face in flickering gold, highlighting that terrible black grin.
Every instinct I had told me to run away, but I held my breath and reminded myself not to move.
Austin, on the other hand, was not as calm.
“Get away from her,” he shouted while pulling on his bindings. “You sick fucks.”
“Don’t fret, sir. Every banquet requires a centerpiece.” Felix lifted his glass and smiled at me. “And ours has never looked so exquisite.”
Humiliation burned through me as the weight of the food pinned me down in my own shame.
I was naked. Except that wasn’t the problem.
It was the way Felix and Flynn were looking at me that made me feel more exposed than I ever had been.
It wasn’t the first time a man had seen me.
I wasn’t a virgin by any means, but this was different.
It felt like they could see everything. Every wrong choice, every thought I’d ever had, and every black mark staining my soul. They could see it all.
Flynn reached down and plucked the grape off my hip.
I watched as he slowly pressed it between his lips.
Felix’s voice drifted down from the far end of the table. “Exquisite, isn’t she, Flynn?”
Flynn’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes lit up. The way he ate that grape was somehow sensual and terrifying at the same time. The way his jaw tensed with every chew felt like he was devouring a part of me.
Then he picked up a knife.
I held my breath as Flynn traced the edge of the blade along my inner thigh. The cool kiss of metal made it hard to stay still. I had to keep stopping myself from closing my legs as the blade inched closer to my pussy. That would not only knock off the bowl but possibly get me cut in the process.
At the other side of the table, Austin jerked against his restraints. “Get away from her, you motherfucker.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured him, mostly because his yelling wasn’t helping me stay still. “I can handle this.”
My reassurance didn’t help calm him. If anything, it made him more feral.
“I’m going to kill you all,” he snarled. “You sick motherfuckers. I’m going to tear you apart.”